Data collection and analysis has become increasingly important for many businesses and other organizations, resulting in large amounts of data that is collected, transmitted, stored, and analyzed. As more data is collected, more storage space is needed and more time may be needed for computers to analyze the data. Moreover, additional bandwidth is required to transmit data from the location the data was collected to another location where the data can be stored or processed. For example, a large amount of video data may be generated by security cameras and transmitted to a remote endpoint, such as a data center, for analysis.
Compressing data is a way to reduce a large amount of data to a more manageable size. Although data compression can be a useful way to deal with large volumes of collected data, it may result in too much data loss. In particular, a compression algorithm that is too aggressive may remove too much of the original data. When too much of the original data is removed, the analysis of the compressed data may produce incorrect results or inaccurate results. For example, data from a security camera may apply too much compression on video images, such that a facial recognition algorithm being may be unable to recognize an authorized employee. This may lead to incorrectly generating a security alarm and unnecessarily tying up company resources.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.